


Anat's Tears

by Morgyn Leri (morgynleri)



Series: The Priest, the Goddess, and the Scholar [2]
Category: Highlander: The Series, Near Eastern Mythology
Genre: GFY, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-30
Updated: 2013-10-30
Packaged: 2017-12-30 22:26:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1024104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgynleri/pseuds/Morgyn%20Leri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You let us do nothing when we might have. It would have been worth burning it all to save you. And now we can do nothing to bring you back."</p>
<p>"I'm not entirely dead."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anat's Tears

She's in his garden, planting dormant bulbs in every spare bit of soil that isn't occupied by herbs. Barely leaving enough of a path winding between her plantings to reach the herb beds. That they're not even real until she plunges her hand into freshly dug holes is a profligate use of her power that he doesn't expect.

"I know you're watching me, Darius." Her voice is rough with grief, and she shifts to allow herself a better line of sight. Where she can see him in her peripheral vision. "I'm not like MacLeod or most of your friends who cannot see beyond the living world."

Darius doesn't move from the doorway, not yet. He still hasn't determined his new limits, and while he thinks the garden might be within them, that doesn't excuse pushing too far, too soon. Not when he's utterly out of his depth.

"I wasn't expecting you so soon." He knew she'd come; he'd be a fool if he hadn't expected it. But for her to arrive as quickly as she had speaks, he thinks, of more use of power than she would normally bother with.

"Mot told me. About the dreams as well." Anat pauses a moment before pushing to her feet and turning. He doesn't expect the raw fury on her face. "You let us do nothing when we might have. It would have been worth burning it all to save you. And now we can do nothing to bring you back."

"I'm not entirely dead," he points out quietly, folding his hands in his sleeves as he meets her gaze. Steady and calm, even in the face of a deity's wrath.

"And I am to simply accept that you will be forever caught between life and death, trapped in the confines of one small church and the gardens that surround it?"

Anat takes a step toward him, her form wavering slightly as if in the shimmer of heat off desert sands. Around her, he can see the plants growing, the bulbs she's planted shooting up green spikes surrounded by leaves and topped with trailing sprays of brilliantly red flowers. Not merely use of her power, he thinks, but manifestation of her anger and grief.

A sound in the church behind Darius breaks the moment, and Anat's wavering control firms, her form as solidly human as that of the man who's entered the church. The garden around her still blooms, the new plants a broad splash of crimson that evokes the thought of new-spilt blood, even as she steps around Darius, ignoring him and the man - Marcus, come to mourn or to say goodbye, Darius thinks - as she walks away.

* * *

Marcus glances at the woman walking from the door that leads to Darius' rooms and the garden beyond, frowning a moment as something about her tugs at his memory. She's ignoring him, and moving too quickly for him to make the connection before she's out the door. He hesitates a moment, before continuing as he'd intended, into the rooms that had belonged to Darius for so long. Where they'd talked long hours, with tea and chess to distract them from whatever subjects the conversation covered.

He'd almost think Darius was still here, watching him as he looked around the room. There'd be little enough to remove, if Marcus hadn't been certain that Darius would prefer the few belongings he'd had be left for his successor. Marcus reaches out to touch the chess board a moment before moving past it toward the open garden door, his attention caught by the brilliant color of some flower.

Flowers that are everywhere, sprays of tiny scarlet blooms that trail like the branches of a weeping willow from the tops of sturdy spikes. They are naggingly familiar, though he has to think for a long moment before he can place them. Flowers that bloom through any weather, though the leaves that wreath the base of the spikes die back in the cold of winter or the dry heat of the desert.

He crouches a moment to touch one of the sprays, his fingers coming away damp with the nectar that collects in the tiny wells. It tastes of salt, and brings to mind tears and blood. The same as the flowers that graced a single spike the height of a man in an Egyptian temple. Marcus knows there will be no seeds, no way to transplant such a flower to another garden. There never has been, for all the trouble some mortals have gone through to do so.

"What name did she bear to you, old friend?" he murmurs as he stands. Remembering the flowers, and his one encounter with the woman who made them grow, centuries past now.


End file.
